Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Last Saturday morning was a wet, gray mess that killed my original plan to go for a ride dead. Time for a backup plan: I have been wanting to see the gold country in the northern Sierras for a while now, and so I headed towards Sonora, hoping the clouds would break.

I like roadtrips, and am the only one in the house that does. Looking at the map, I saw the main roads, and forest roads, and made a loop out of both. The on-road would take me through a number of towns with some original buildings after an off-road portion, consisting of a trail called Dodge Ridge with a difficulty rating of 3.

I never really got to do the on-road part much, as the off-road became more time-consuming than I expected. The trail got narrow for the Pilot (a minivan-on-stilts), then the rocks became bigger. I love the sound of bushes scratching paint. The rocks then combined with more climbing. The stock tires were not happy campers here, so wheel placement was key in protecting them. The definition of adventure is a journey where the outcome is uncertain; this one had its moments. It took 3.5 hours to go 12 miles. Still, the views were quite nice, the weather perfect, with temps pushing the 90's. I only saw 2 others on this trail, and they were on ATV's with rifles mounted on the handlebars. I also saw an original homestead from the 1850's. Good times.